the blog

So TWO years ago my lovely friend Lindsey found these Tommy Hilfiger adds that were taken at the salt flats… she fell in love with them and new that is where we HAD to take her family pictures!!! Soooo after months and months of stressing out about clothes and hair and accessories we finally picked a date for the beloved event (of corse it was planned around tans!) So we all head out in their SUV with Britt and Linds in the front and me and the two kids in the back… I was in the middle. We were told it took about an hour and a half to get out there so we fully prepared ourselves with plenty of diet coke and treats. It was kind of fun to be one of the kids for a change… at one point Lindsey was feeding all three of us fries handful by handful… it was pretty hilarious actually!! We had been driving for a while and could see the lake in the distance and for sure we thought we were there!! Britton reassured us blonde girls that we had only been on the road for 45 min and had a ways to go… It was at that point that we realized we really didn’t know where exactly we were going… mind you, the outfits are on, the hair is done, the tans are golden, the facial hair is just at that right stage… I mean pretty much everything was going for us. Well, almost… Scarlett’s chewed up string cheese she didn’t want in my hand was not ideal but I’m a mom… no big deal right:)!! Anyway with everything perfect and no directions with the light fading we kind of started to panic. I called Dan who googled the salt flats and told me it was off exit 4 and we were at like 100 and something… um… crap!! Lindsey called her Dad who we couldn’t get a hold of and we pulled over to ask a man on the side of the road. He said they were by Wendover which to us seemed like forever away! I kind of wanted to hyperventilate. Lindsey was surprisingly calm, Britton just kept on driving. The kids were totally amazing and so well behaved. I was completely shocked!! So we just kept driving praying they would come quick so it wasn’t dark when we got there! The further we went the further from the lake we went and more into no mans land we came but we kept going and eating and sipping on our diet coke until we saw what looked like the moon with hazy dust rising from it… that had to be them… we arrived!!! Coolest place EVER!!!!! Britt turned off some random 2 inch road and flew out to the middle of no where. We all frantically got out… at this point we really didn’t have much light and the light we did have was pretty dang harsh bouncing off everything WHITE!!! We only had one problem… no potty and no where to hide… lets just say we improvised:). We threw on ties and a headbands and climbed down the 2 inch road that was like 10 feet straight down of nothing but sharp rock. I started ordering everyone around and felt totally mean but whatever… I had a two hour drive to ask for forgiveness. We shot til it was totally dark and the kids were DONE and headed back up to the wall of rock. Once we reached the car we realized we were in such a hurry that we left all the doors open… a new fly colony settled right inside!!! I have NEVER in my life seen so many flies… EVER!!! We got as many out as would go which wasn’t many, hopped in and closed all the doors so no more could come in. Now we were faced with backing up with no where to turn around on the 2 inch rock road in the DARK!! Houston is the cutest thing ever and decided he needed to say a prayer… yep! It was that scary!!! He said the sweetest prayer ever and off the road we went on our trek back to earth with all our new fly friends. We took scarlett’s poor baby doll and started swatting and thought we got most of them… well, at least til we had to turn on the light for something and got a glimpse of the ceiling which was COVERED!!! SICK!! Even though the flies but a damper on our appetites we had to stop for some promised ice cream at McDonald’s and away we went. The THINGS we do for a good picture!!! You would never know just looking at these what we went through but I’m pretty dang positive it was all worth it and the memory is totally priceless even if days later there were still a couple of lingering flies!!